We knew it was only a matter of time before disgruntled women’s soccer players took action against FIFA for forcing them to play on artificial turf at next year's World Cup, and they’ve finally pulled the trigger.
Abby Wambach and a group of international star players filed a lawsuit in Canada yesterday challenging FIFA plans to play the tournament on the artificial surface.
The suit was filed at the Ontario Human Rights Tribunal in Toronto. FIFA had to have seen this coming after receiving repeated questions spurred by the players' unrest.
The women claim that it is gender discrimination to make women play on artificial turf while it wouldn't ever be considered to let the men play on the surface - and we at The18 believe it's true that this is unfair, gender-based discrimination.
Let’s point out that the FIFA Men's World Cup would NEVER be played on turf solely because the players wouldn’t allow it. We mentioned Sepp Blatter’s awful reputation among the women’s soccer community and this only adds fuel to the fire. Take a look at Sydney Leroux’s tweet after playing on turf:
This is why soccer should be played on grass! pic.twitter.com/fsNGi27oRY
— Sydney Leroux (@sydneyleroux) April 15, 2013
You don’t play soccer on turf. Period. Gareth Bale played on turf about a month ago in a 2016 Euro qualifying match and had this to say:
"I can't describe how bad, bobbly and hard the pitch was to deal with," Bale said. "We said at the start that the most important thing was to get three points. Other teams are going to find it difficult coming here so for us to get three points is important. We want to qualify and you have to come to places like this and get victories."
The players say that there is greater risk of injury on turf, and the artificial surface impacts both how the game is played and how the ball rolls. We agree with them and so does Tom Hanks,
Opinion: Women’s World Cup is the best Soccer of the year. Hey FIFA, they deserve real grass. Put in sod. Hanx
— Tom Hanks (@tomhanks) August 22, 2014
Kobe Bryant, Kevin Durant and Tim Howard all agree as well:
I support protecting the players & the game. I stand with the #USWNT players in their quest for a #WWC played on grass #EqualPlayingField
— tim howard (@TimHowardGK) August 26, 2014
Sure it costs an extra $3-6 million to replace turf with grass or roll out sod over the turf, but that is nothing for FIFA. USWNT midfielder Megan Rapinoe had this to say last month:
"Is it going to cost them a little bit of money? Yeah. Maybe a drop in the bucket for FIFA for the amount of money that they have. It just seems like they're kind of like, 'Oh, yeah, whatever, this is just what you're going to have.' When there's an alternative option, that's frustrating."
We’re with you Pinoe. We’re with you.
